Flight Data Recorders, Decades Out of Date 266
Tisha_AH writes "For the past fifty years the technology behind aircraft flight data recorders has remained stagnant. Some of the advances of cloud computing, mesh radio networks, real-time position reporting and satellite communications are held back by a combination of aircraft manufacturers, pilots unions and the slow gears of government bureaucracy. Many recent aircraft loss incidents remain unexplained, with black boxes lost on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, buried under the wreckage of the World Trade Centers or with critical information suppressed by government secrecy or aircraft manufacturers. Many devices still rely upon tape recorders for voice and data that only record a very small sampling of aircraft dynamics, flight and engine systems or crew behaviors. Technologically simple solutions like battery backup, continual telemetry feeds by satellite and hundreds of I/O points, monitoring many systems should be within easy reach. Pilot unions have objected to the collection and sharing of detailed accident data, citing privacy concerns of the flight crew. Accidents may be due to human error, process problems or design flaws. Unless we can fully evaluate all factors involved in transportation accidents, it will be difficult to improve the safety record. Recommendations by the NTSB to the FAA have gone unheeded for many years. With all of the technological advancements that we work with in the IT field, what sort of best practices could be brought forward in transit safety?"
are you serious? (Score:1, Insightful)
well, they can run in parallel. as far as i know, nobody says you can't have a backup flight data recorder using mesh cloud pie-in-the-sky technology...
Dune Coons (Score:3, Insightful)
Really if this were a private Internet connection with an expectation of privacy they'd have come up with 20 different ways to monitor it, 5 of which wouldn't require a warrant due to bad precedent. A flight data recorder has no concerns about privacy and such so it just isn't a priority. Nice. Real nice.
tape isn't bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Tape is one of the best long term and reliable storage methods. As long as it doesn't burn (which kills any memory type), it's more stable in most situations than the modern memory devices. Remember, it has be stable in salt water, in high impact, humid environments, dry environments, wide temperature ranges, take electrical shock, etc.
People just think it sucks b/c it's old school and clunky.
Buzzwords (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would a black box need to use cloud computing or mesh networks?
Just because new technologies have emerged doesn't mean they are necessarily applicable in all areas of computing. My knowledge in this field is limited, but I just don't see the point of a twittering black box, or whatever web 2.0 meme is the flavor of the day.
FAIL (Score:5, Insightful)
a bit for unions a bit for bureaucracy... (Score:5, Insightful)
The rabid tone of the summary is completely unsupported by the article itself. Does the submitter have any evidence that advancements are held back by unions, bureaucracy and privacy concerns? The article does not claim anything like that.
They are just proposing a replacement technology with a catchy name. The submitter is a massive troll.
Re:FAIL (Score:5, Insightful)
You also left out the part about the government hiding crucial data. You know like when Grey's cause a plane to crash or when the Illuminati shoot one down to see how we will react. Where is my tin foil hat?
What people don't understand is that you are
more likely to die in your car or hit by lightning than in an airliner crash. It is a flashy news worthy event when it happens because it is so rare.
Here is the big question. How many times has a black box not been found? And how many times has the lack of one caused other planes to crash?
The airlines are already adding real time telemetry to their new airlines if for no other reason than to improve maintenance. The older black boxes are getting replaced be newer and better ones. The old ones do actually work very well and have provided the data needed to improve safety over the years.
So for this most part this whole thing is a paranoid issue with very little merit in the big scheme of things.
Welcome to Drudge-dot! (Score:3, Insightful)
held back by a combination of aircraft manufacturers, pilots unions and the slow gears of government bureaucracy
Does the article support the notion of the pilots unions fighting against modernization of flight recorders? No, it doesn't. Does common sense support such a notion? No, it doesn't either.
Really, this is not a place for union bashing. If you have an axe to grind, so be it. But don't try to wield your axe at every conceived opportunity, or you'll end up making yourself look silly - as you just did.
Re:Aviation age predates the information age (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't live in the USA. But...
The USA sets the standard. If the FAA won't touch it, pretty much no-one else will, since their product will be useless in one of the top markets in the world, and I'm pretty sure the other major markets just follow the example of the USA anyway.
Also, indeed, it seems the experimental crowd grows smaller. I am 30, and by a huge margin the whippersnapper of the local EAA chapter. I'm not even that active, but I'm trying to get a plane built "someday". That's more than I can say for the rest of "gen-X". The sad part is, even though my composite plane will (hopefully someday) be light-years ahead of what the general-aviation guys are flying, it's still a design from the late 70's. There's not much "new" out there... The most radical guy I can think of is Rutan, and he's getting on in years now...
And that's the EXPERIMENTAL crowd. As far as I can tell, Cessna are only interested in stamping out their ancient designs for the rest of time. And why shouldn't they? the older aviation crowd wanna fly what they know... and the FAA are totally cool with that! I can hardly imagine any significant flying school not having a fleet of 172's. It's the status quo for the aviation guys, and status quo is all there is for them. I find this very irritating since I'm an IT person, and I want to see continuous improvement and experimentation.
Aviation had an age where people were free to try new things, and try they did. But these days propose anything just a little bit out of the box and even your local EAA guy starts telling you how crazy you are for not sticking to the "tried ways". It seems air-folk think that everything's been tried and any deviation from the set standard is to ask for death. If you get totally crazy, yes, I agree, you'll probably die, especially if you're "eyeball engineering", like many a self-styled builder is known to do. That's not what I mean here.
I feel that FAA certification has killed any innovation that is to be had in the industry. That is combined with a general lack of interest from young people in experimental flying (no, getting your com and bussing people around in a Caravan doesn't count). When the current (already oldish) generation of EAA-ers die, I'm not sure there are going to be significant numbers of people to replace them. I think, in about 15 years, I will be one of two EAA people left in my city, down from enough people to run the local EAA airfield by themselves. I cry for the day that particular initiative will die due to lack of interest.
"Advances of cloud computing" are being held back? (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that "Cloud Computing" as a buzzword is only about two years old, and has yet to receive a great deal of commercial deployment, I think we can hardly blame the FAA, NTSB, Boeing, Airbus, and airlines for not deploying it Right The Heck Now.
What does that even mean, to use "Cloud Computing" for the "black box"? Cloud Computing has about as coherent of a definition as the previous buzzword du jour, "Web 2.0".
SirWired
Re:tape isn't bad (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it comes down to the fact that they (pilots) don't want that level of scrutiny. Why not? Well, would you want it in your car?
Except you own the car, the pilots don't own the airplane they are flying and your car isn't carrying hundreds of passengers who are paying your employer for you to fly them to a destination. If I was a pilot I would welcome that level of scrutiny. Where am I going wrong so that I can improve my skills as a pilot.
Re:tape isn't bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's absolutely ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that everything with safety implications should be subject of scrutiny. It's just that human factors are very widely misunderstood. You have mechanics who can inspect any flying hardware, but good luck finding a "mechanic" who can examine a pilot to determine if he/she is fit for flying that day.
Pilots union needs to STFU (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:tape isn't bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Would you feel comfortable with a keystroke logger installed on your work computer by your employer?
Re:Welcome to Drudge-dot! (Score:3, Insightful)
Just look at the news and see all the crazy things unions do that dont make sense (unless you are pro-union).
Can you provide an actual example of such an action? People love to go on with "my cousin's best friend's aunt's hairdresser's husband's kid's teacher heard a story about ..." but yet they can't provide a source for such an event happening.
Whereas people who have had their eyes open in the last couple of decades have noticed that unions have consistently been losing power for roughly the last 20 years. Membership is down across the country (in part because they have so little power) and anti-union activities by employers have been damn near endorsed by the government.
Whoever the conservative hack was that wrote this summary came up with their little anti-union snipe in spite of the fact that the actual article didn't say anything about unions. If they want to go around bashing unions, they are welcomed to do so. However, as I've already said, they don't further the discussion when they resort to making shit up.
IMHO Unions are concerned that with more ubiquitous FDR and especially CVR data, it will be easier in a he-said-she-said environment post accident to defend their members' actions and cover any mistakes that aren't able to be proven otherwise.
If only you could back up your opinion with fact. But just like the hack who wrote the summary, you won't do any such thing.
Think of it this way: would YOU want a permanently mounted GPS in your car tied into your car's brains so the following happens?:
You started out trying to claim the unions to be somehow evil (in spite of not being able to offer any facts to support your notions). Now you are taking a stance in support of what you claim the unions are supporting. I guess it is no small wonder why you couldn't bother to log in to make your claim.
Re:tape isn't bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that is not how the data would be used. Every infraction would be used as a reason to fire someone, and hire a less-expensive employee. And in case of any accident or incident, any unrelated error would be fodder for extended lawsuits. Any minor failure in a judgement call would be costly. If the pilots debate turning on the "fasten seatbelt" annunciator based on a marginal radar return and "maybe" some turbulence ahead and someone is injured, that debate will become "gross negligence".
You need to understand the aviation liability industry. There is a story of a fellow who flew a Piper Cub who removed the seats. He taxied to the runway, and because there were no seats he couldn't see over the dash, so he didn't see the van parked on the runway. He hit the van. He died. The family sued Piper Aircraft.
Re:tape isn't bad (Score:3, Insightful)
If my job was such that typos at any time could kill hundreds of people in minutes, then yes.
Re:FAIL (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's take the "instant backup" concept a bit further, though. I realize this is pure speculation, but...
What if the data was backed up to the nearest towers continuously? The controller, seeing the plane off course and unable to raise the crew, might be able to access the cockpit voice recording seconds after it was recorded (listening in on the cockpit almost in real-time). He'd hear what was going on and know minutes or seconds earlier that he had a hijacking on his hands, and might possibly have been able to scramble an intercept more quickly.
I'm not for a minute suggesting that the WTC attack could have been prevented by this, because the incident happened very quickly, but having that data available long before you even start recovery, and in some cases before the crash even occurs, could be useful.
Re:FAIL (Score:5, Insightful)
You also left out the part about the government hiding crucial data. You know like when Grey's cause a plane to crash or when the Illuminati shoot one down to see how we will react. Where is my tin foil hat?
What people don't understand is that you are
more likely to die in your car or hit by lightning than in an airliner crash. It is a flashy news worthy event when it happens because it is so rare.
Here is the big question. How many times has a black box not been found? And how many times has the lack of one caused other planes to crash?
Well unless my logic 101 professor in college failed miserably, it is impossible to know if a box which was never found could have prevented another crash.